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Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at [Poll #1088052]
The results (don't cheat and look at these first!):
1) FALSE. From 1970 to the late 1990s, men's attitudes towards marriage became more favorable, while women's became less so. By the end of the century, more men than women said that marriage was their ideal lifestyle. And, on average, men become more content with their marriages over time while women grow less so. A majority of divorced men and women report that the wife was the one who wanted out of the marriage. A recent study of divorces that occurred after age 40 found that wives initiated 2/3 of them.
2) FALSE. The differences in ages of men and women at first marriage has been narrowing for the past 80 years and is now at a historic low. By the end of the 1990s, 39% of women age 35 to 44 lived with younger men. Men still rate youth and good looks higher than women do when looking for a mate, but those criteria no longer outweigh all others. Men are much more likely now to seek a mate who has the same level of education and similar earning potential. College-educated women are more likely to marry and less likely to divorce than women with less education.
3) TRUE. Although divorce rates have risen, death rates have fallen even more steely, so that more couples will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversaries now more than at any time in the past. Furthermore, the divorce rate reached its height more than 25 years ago. It has fallen by more than 25% since 1981.
4) FALSE. Americans are now more tolerant of consenting sexual relations between unmarried adults than in the past. But surveys show that disapproval of adultery, sexual coercion, rape and sex with minors has increased over the past 30 years and is now at a historic high. In 1889, a girl could legally consent to sex at 10, 11, 0r 12 in half the states, and in Delaware the age of consent was 7. There were many more prostitutes per capita in the late 19th century America than there are today - resulting in a high incidence of venereal disease among respectably married women infected by their husbands.
5) FALSE. For the first thousands of years of its existence, the church held that a marriage was valid if a couple claimed they had exchanged words of consent - even if there were no witnesses and no priest to officiate. Not until 1754 did England require issuance of a license for marriage to be valid. Informal marriage and cohabitation were so common in the early 19th century America that one judge estimated that 1/3 of all children were born to couples who were not legally married.
6) FALSE. The liklihood that college-educated women will drop out of the labor force because of having children declined by half from 1984 to 2004. And among all mothers with children under 6, the most highly educated are the least likely to leave their jobs, with that likelihood declining with each level of educational attainment.
7) TRICK QUESTION. Women with non-traditional values are indeed more likely to divorce than women wiht traditional views, but they are also more likely to get married in the first place. As for men, those with traditional values about gender are more likely to marry than nontraditional men, but they are also more likely to divorce. We don't precisely know why this discrepancy exists, but it probably has something to do with the fact that women's views on gender are changing more rapidly then men's.
8) FALSE. Aside from a huge spike in divorce immediately after World War II, divorce rates in the 1950s were higher than in any previous decade aside from the Depression, and almost one in three marriages formed in the 1950s eventually ended in divorce. Divorce rates rose steadily from the 1890s through the 1960s (with a dip in the Depression and a spike after WWII), soared in the 1970s, and have fallen since 1981. Marriage rates, however, have also fallen significantly in the past 25 years.
9) FALSE. Ancient Roman phiolosphers and medieval theologians thought that loving your spouse too much was a form of "adultery", a betrayal of one's obligations to country or God. The ancient Greeks held that the purest form of love was between two men. In China, Confucian philosophers ranked the relationship between husband and wife as second from the bottom on their list of the most important family ties, with the father-eldest son relationship topping the list. Early Christians thought marriage was inescapably tained by the presence of sex. According to the medieval church, virgins ranked highest in godliness, widoes were second and wives a distant third.
10) TRUE. In 2001, schoolgirls around the world were asked whether they agreed with the statement that everyone needed to marry. Three-quarters of American schoolgirls agreed. But in Japan, 88 percent of schoolgirls disagreed.
11) FALSE. Divorce in modern America often does cause a sharp drop in the economic standard of living for women and children. But states that legalized no-fault divorce experienced an average 20% decline in suicide rates among married women over the following 5 years. And a recent study suggests that while divorce worsens the emotional well-being of 55% to 60% of children, it improves the well-being of 40% to 45%.
12) FALSE. The form of marriage that has been approved by more societies than any other through the ages has been polygyny - one man, many women. That family form is the one mentioned most often in the first five books of the Bible. In some societies, one woman could marry several men. In others, two families could forge an alliance by marrying off a son or daughter to the "ghost" of the other family's dead child. For most of history, the main impetus for marriage was getting in-laws and managing property, not love or sex.
13) TRUE. 35% of born-again Christians in this country have divorced, almost the same as the 37% of athiests and agnostics who have divorced - and 23% of born-again Christians have divorced twice! Among Pentecostals, the divorce rate is more than 40%. The region with the highest divorce rate is the Bible Belt.
1) FALSE. From 1970 to the late 1990s, men's attitudes towards marriage became more favorable, while women's became less so. By the end of the century, more men than women said that marriage was their ideal lifestyle. And, on average, men become more content with their marriages over time while women grow less so. A majority of divorced men and women report that the wife was the one who wanted out of the marriage. A recent study of divorces that occurred after age 40 found that wives initiated 2/3 of them.
2) FALSE. The differences in ages of men and women at first marriage has been narrowing for the past 80 years and is now at a historic low. By the end of the 1990s, 39% of women age 35 to 44 lived with younger men. Men still rate youth and good looks higher than women do when looking for a mate, but those criteria no longer outweigh all others. Men are much more likely now to seek a mate who has the same level of education and similar earning potential. College-educated women are more likely to marry and less likely to divorce than women with less education.
3) TRUE. Although divorce rates have risen, death rates have fallen even more steely, so that more couples will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversaries now more than at any time in the past. Furthermore, the divorce rate reached its height more than 25 years ago. It has fallen by more than 25% since 1981.
4) FALSE. Americans are now more tolerant of consenting sexual relations between unmarried adults than in the past. But surveys show that disapproval of adultery, sexual coercion, rape and sex with minors has increased over the past 30 years and is now at a historic high. In 1889, a girl could legally consent to sex at 10, 11, 0r 12 in half the states, and in Delaware the age of consent was 7. There were many more prostitutes per capita in the late 19th century America than there are today - resulting in a high incidence of venereal disease among respectably married women infected by their husbands.
5) FALSE. For the first thousands of years of its existence, the church held that a marriage was valid if a couple claimed they had exchanged words of consent - even if there were no witnesses and no priest to officiate. Not until 1754 did England require issuance of a license for marriage to be valid. Informal marriage and cohabitation were so common in the early 19th century America that one judge estimated that 1/3 of all children were born to couples who were not legally married.
6) FALSE. The liklihood that college-educated women will drop out of the labor force because of having children declined by half from 1984 to 2004. And among all mothers with children under 6, the most highly educated are the least likely to leave their jobs, with that likelihood declining with each level of educational attainment.
7) TRICK QUESTION. Women with non-traditional values are indeed more likely to divorce than women wiht traditional views, but they are also more likely to get married in the first place. As for men, those with traditional values about gender are more likely to marry than nontraditional men, but they are also more likely to divorce. We don't precisely know why this discrepancy exists, but it probably has something to do with the fact that women's views on gender are changing more rapidly then men's.
8) FALSE. Aside from a huge spike in divorce immediately after World War II, divorce rates in the 1950s were higher than in any previous decade aside from the Depression, and almost one in three marriages formed in the 1950s eventually ended in divorce. Divorce rates rose steadily from the 1890s through the 1960s (with a dip in the Depression and a spike after WWII), soared in the 1970s, and have fallen since 1981. Marriage rates, however, have also fallen significantly in the past 25 years.
9) FALSE. Ancient Roman phiolosphers and medieval theologians thought that loving your spouse too much was a form of "adultery", a betrayal of one's obligations to country or God. The ancient Greeks held that the purest form of love was between two men. In China, Confucian philosophers ranked the relationship between husband and wife as second from the bottom on their list of the most important family ties, with the father-eldest son relationship topping the list. Early Christians thought marriage was inescapably tained by the presence of sex. According to the medieval church, virgins ranked highest in godliness, widoes were second and wives a distant third.
10) TRUE. In 2001, schoolgirls around the world were asked whether they agreed with the statement that everyone needed to marry. Three-quarters of American schoolgirls agreed. But in Japan, 88 percent of schoolgirls disagreed.
11) FALSE. Divorce in modern America often does cause a sharp drop in the economic standard of living for women and children. But states that legalized no-fault divorce experienced an average 20% decline in suicide rates among married women over the following 5 years. And a recent study suggests that while divorce worsens the emotional well-being of 55% to 60% of children, it improves the well-being of 40% to 45%.
12) FALSE. The form of marriage that has been approved by more societies than any other through the ages has been polygyny - one man, many women. That family form is the one mentioned most often in the first five books of the Bible. In some societies, one woman could marry several men. In others, two families could forge an alliance by marrying off a son or daughter to the "ghost" of the other family's dead child. For most of history, the main impetus for marriage was getting in-laws and managing property, not love or sex.
13) TRUE. 35% of born-again Christians in this country have divorced, almost the same as the 37% of athiests and agnostics who have divorced - and 23% of born-again Christians have divorced twice! Among Pentecostals, the divorce rate is more than 40%. The region with the highest divorce rate is the Bible Belt.
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no subject
Date: 11/14/07 03:01 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 11/14/07 06:45 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 11/15/07 01:13 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 11/15/07 05:25 pm (UTC)From:divorce
Date: 11/21/07 12:47 am (UTC)From: (Anonymous)Re: divorce
Date: 11/21/07 01:51 am (UTC)From:Besides that, not everyone includes the "til death do we part" section anymore.
And I strongly disagree with your statement of marriage being the "single most important social contract we have" and with the following statement of it being "thrown away as if it has no worth".
The first part is because marriage has always undergone change and is constantly evolving. There is no "traditional marriage" because marriage has meant something different in ever era and in every society.
The second part is because people are not "throwing it away" because it has no worth. Rather, people are valuing marriage even more highly now than ever before and are refusing to settle for a marriage that is less than satisfying. It's BECAUSE people value marriage that they are willing to get rid of a marriage that isn't living up to their so-high expectations.
I'm not sure how you found my journal, because clearly, we have very different views on relationships and that's almost all of what I write about. If my point of view bothers you so much, spending time reading it and then replying to it is probably not the most efficient use of your time.
Re: divorce
Date: 11/21/07 12:45 pm (UTC)From: (Anonymous)Lawrence from OKC.
The work you cite in the above is one of the reasons that the social scientists are sneered at by real scientists- misleading, sophomric, and rather fuzzy, it only proves that the reasearcher can convince himself of his premises.
I have never married (two close calls, one pyschic suicide attempt)- the reason I usually cite is that I believe in marriage, but a better answer would be that I believe in the vows I make, and I do believe (wheather it's left out or not) in 'death do us part'. I don't believe in monogamy on a philosophical level, though I am prone to serial monogamy, myself (one relationship at a time is about all the work I wish to take on ), But I think the real issue is, as you seem to be saying, the social mythos that has acreated around marriage, and not the actual concept of a life partnership.
Mostly though, you seem to be saying in the above, that you'd only like to communicate with people of a like mind. Is that really what you mean? I browse your LJ from time to time, not looking for things I agree with, but for the different veiw it represents.
and thank you, BTW. I do enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Stay warm,
Lawrence
Re: divorce
Date: 11/21/07 05:00 pm (UTC)From:I'm saying that if reading things from people make you unhappy, it would probably serve you better to not read those things. I don't listen to Howard Stern either because I don't like him. (This doesn't mean he should be taken off the air - that's a freedom of speech thing and a totally different topic). When someone has a different point of view to mine, I might listen if I think their POV has any validty, but getting upset at someone else's POV when that person is a faceless webpage on the internet is a waste of time, IMO,and so is arguing with them. If you're that passionate about your subject, you can better serve your time by lobbying your congressman or writing letters or doing any number of other things to help your cause, than arguing with some stranger online, especially one who does not want to argue back with you. I just don't understand this whole online trend of spending all your time arguing with people you don't know on subjects that everyone is dead set on their position and not willing to listen. If you don't like what I have to say, don't read it. Notice, I didn't say if you don't *agree* with what I have to say, I said if you don't *like* it. And if you don't like it, I don't really care. There's no need to tell me because I don't care if you don't like me.
I'm also saying that when a person has a clear point of view on a particular subject, they are unlikely to change their mind and making inflammatory posts in *their* journal isn't going to help your cause. The above post was not a "I have this piece of research that states the opposite point of view, what is your opinion on that?" kind of statement. It was a belligerent "you're wrong" kind of statement said to someone who 1) has made her position very clear on the subject and 2) was not even in a post that originated a "you're wrong" kind of topic ... it was more for archival purposes for my own use since I reference these articles regularly and I know other people who would appreciate having access to them.
And for the most part, no, I don't really want to hear opposing viewpoints in my own journal. Most of these topics are things I have already researched and heard the opposing point of view and rejected it, hence my own acceptance of this particular point of view. I don't make a habit of hearing one side and accepting it as my own opinion without hearing the other side and finding the holes in each. Once I've adopted it as my opinion, I've already heard the other side and decided it was not adequate for whatever reason. When new pieces of evidence come to light that change the nature of my "evidence", I am willing to reconsider it, but that is not what most of these "opposing viewpoints" are offering. They are often offering an emotional reaction with no logic or "fact" to back them up.
This particular author that I am archiving here is not misleading or sophomoric because I have done the research myself, independently, before I ever came across her articles and my conclusions match. I was a sociology majory in college, and marriage and families were my particular niche. I am archiving her because my writing tends to be cumbersome and it's easier for me to point to someone else's work rather than having to write it all from scratch myself.
Re: divorce
Date: 11/21/07 02:54 pm (UTC)From:Sorry if I'm being absurd but I get creeped out when someone makes blanket statements like there is one most important social contract and thats to one and only one person and not to your fellow humans. This smacks of handy justification to be sociopathic and that makes me want to not be that person's neighbor. After all they might think my tv would improve their marriage....
Re: divorce
Date: 11/21/07 05:03 pm (UTC)From:^ what he said!
Re: divorce
Date: 11/21/07 05:10 pm (UTC)From:As you so correctly point out, there are other things to consider in the "social contract", such as how you treat your fellow human beings. The idea is that it is a "social" contract, meaning interacting with other people, not just one person. How you treat that One Person does not necessarily translate into your "worth in society" because many wife-beaters have been known to give generously to charity, help little old ladies cross the street, etc. To isolate any one aspect of how one should behave in a social setting is to give permission, perhaps implied, to rationalize ignoring all the rest.
Re: divorce
Date: 11/27/07 10:58 pm (UTC)From:Those who choose not to have children are a different matter. But your children are dependent on you, and if your spouse is not an independent adult you already did something wrong. You have an obligation to your children to protect them, and that includes from your spouse if it turns that way. Not getting a child away from an abusive parent, and that generally requires divorce is wrong. And the fact that your view supports such a scenario means you are either evil or short-sighted. I'm guessing short-sighted.